1 Combatting smog: The Beijing government put in place emergency measures Wednesday to try to combat thick smog that has encased the city, which the Communist Party has hailed as a showcase capital, in brown and gray soot. The measures include temporarily shutting down more than 100 factories and ordering one-third of government vehicles off the streets, according to official news reports. Beijing has writhed in the grip of the most polluted air days on recent record.

2 Pakistani teen: Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani teen who was shot by the Taliban after campaigning for the rights of women and girls for an education, will undergo her final cranial surgery in a few days, her British doctors in Birmingham said Wednesday. Malala, 15, gained online fame through the blog she began as an 11-year-old schoolgirl about attending school in an area of Pakistan's Swat Valley under strict Taliban rule, which bans girls from receiving a secondary education. Doctors said there should be no long-term damage of the kind that often results from head injuries.

3 American released: Vietnamese authorities on Wednesday released and deported an American pro-democracy activist detained since April, a move that contrasts with the long prison terms given to Vietnamese activists who are members of the same U.S.-based dissident group. The release of Nguyen Quoc Quan came after U.S. diplomatic pressure and removes an obvious thorn in relations between the former enemies. Both countries are trying to strengthen their ties in large part because of shared concerns over China's emerging military and economic might.

4 Accord scrapped: Russia pulled out of an anticrime accord with the United States on Wednesday in a move the U.S. called "self-defeating," the latest sign of rising tensions between Moscow and Washington. Alexei Pushkov, head of Russia's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said the decision reflected Russia's ability to manage its affairs without outside help. The agreement is just one of several bilateral cooperation deals that Moscow has decided to abandon.

5 Food shortages: Venezuelans have been coping with sporadic shortages of foods ranging from cooking oil to sugar, and lately a dearth of flour is preventing some bakeries from making bread. The shortage of imported wheat flour stems from problems including bottlenecks in seaports, a labor conflict at one processing company and a shortage of dollars allotted to importers by the government.

6 Hitler's house: An Austrian charity that helps immigrants reportedly plans to set up an office in the house where Adolf Hitler was born. The villa in the Upper Austrian town of Braunau has been empty for more than a year since a workshop for the mentally disabled moved out.

7 Fewer beers: Germans are emptying fewer beer steins these days. Consumption of the national beverage fell by 1.8 percent last year to the lowest level since West and East Germany reunified in 1990. The German government statistics agency reported Wednesday that Germans drank 2.55 billion gallons last year. German beer consumption has been slowly falling for three decades. Reasons include health concerns and growing preference for other beverages such as wine, especially among younger people.